Mr. Boop

Mr. Boop #1-4

by Alec Robbins

The beloved webcomic collected in its entirety for the first time in a beautiful deluxe edition!

Author Alec Robbins is deeply in love with his wife, 1930s cartoon superstar Betty Boop. And wouldn't you know it, she loves him back! It's the perfect marriage, and nothing will ever go wrong. They'll be happy together forever and nothing will ever come between them--not other famous cartoon characters, not intellectual property law, and certainly not Alec's own towering insecurities. Basically, they're just both really happy together and everything's good and nice and that's the end of it. No more questions. Don't even bother reading this comic.

Absurdist humor, a middle finger to corporate IP, and a sweetly romantic heart blend together into one of the most inventive comics of the Twitter age.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Fiction, Graphic Novels Comics, Comix, Adult, Fantasy

384 pages, Hardcover

Published May 1, 2022

Reviews

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Comedian and comics guy Alec Robbins is deeply in love with his wife, 1930s cartoon superstar Betty Boop. That's the basis of this series of 4-panel comics, which began as a joke for his friends. No, he's not legally married to Betty Boop. There is a statue of Betty Boop in some bar somewhere and he had pictures taken of him and Betty and you know, she's my girlfriend, I'm gonna marry her, and the joke just took off. Some people describe the online comic as raunchy, and it is for adults only, there is some talk about sex, threesomes with Fred Flintstones, and so on, I guess, but honestly it is just kinda funny.

Then it's a bit in it that emerges about copyright infringement, which I suppose has always been an issue for some comics, beginning with Tijuana Bibles, but I have no idea if there was an actual legal challenge. Robbins speaks of it as part of the process, and later he--the comic version of Alec--makes it clear he can't talk about his wife Betty Boop as his actual wife, there are lawyers, and so on.

The comic expands to Alec and Betty's involvement with other comic book characters, and plenty of guest artists doing their take on it all, one-shot (I'm tempted to make a joke here; hey, Alec woulda!) pages. So as with Betty, Jessica Rabbit is an obvious choice for racy involvement, but that would be too easy, and boring. Alec and his friends prefer characters with Betty such as Sonic the Hedgehog, SpongeBob, Bugs Bunny, and so on. And yes, plenty of women comics artists get involved, too, even though it seems like a juvenile boy's club gag. Well, it is a juvenile boy's gag, but over time some of his women comedian and comics friends got involved, too.

There's a funny sequence where a woman named Elizabeth--Betty for short--supposedly makes a connection with Alec, who writes her into the comic and changes her words to make it look like she is more attracted to him than she really is, and also makes her look increasingly like Betty Boop. "Wait, did you call me Betty?! You know I go by Liz. . ." "What, what are you talking about, I know you are Liz. . ." "Oh, Alec, I am okay with this because you are so hot. . ." and so on.

[Rod Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

This tribute to Tijuana bibles amuses by putting cartoon characters like Betty Boop, Bugs Bunny, Peter Griffin, and Mickey Mouse in sexual situations, but slowly morphs into a satirical but dramatic metafiction critique of intellectual property and the leverage that corporations have over copyright law.

Naughty and thought-provoking is one of my favorite combinations.


FOR REFERENCE:

Contents:
• Free Sex, Free Beer, Free Speech - Mr. Boop and the Problem of Desire [Essay] by F. Stewart-Taylor, originally published in SOLRAD, March 2021. Edited by Alex Hoffman and Daniel Elkin
• Introduction by Jim Davis, Creator of Garfield

Mr. Boop, Volume I: "My Wife is Betty Boop" by Alec Robbins

Guest Strips:
• Mr. Boop / Pete Toms
• [Untitled] / Casey Nowak
• Mrs. Zimmeruski / Jonni Phillips (pseudonym)
• [Untitled] / Remy Boydell
• [Dinosaur Comics: Untitled] / Ryan North
• [Untitled] / Aleks Sennwald
• I Had a Threesome with Betty Boop and Mr. Boop / Carta Monir
• . . . goodnight! / Max Schwartz
• Mr. Boop in "Date Night" / Sean Muscles

Mr. Boop, Volume II: "God is a Woman, and She's my Wife" by Alec Robbins

Guest Strips:
• [Untitled] / Yugo Limbo
• Bimbo Boop / Branson Reese
• Boop Gaiden / Emma Jayne
• Mr. Boop Guest Comic / Zac Gorman
• Mr. Boop by Alec Robbins / Ryan Pequin
• [Untitled] / Scott Benson
• Mr. The Dog / Ryan North and Derek Charm

Mr. Boop, Volume III: "Cease & Exist" by Alec Robbins

Guest Strips:
• [Untitled] / Julia Kaye
• Divorce Lawyer / Olivia Walch
• Mr. Boop Buys Weed / Shan Horan
• Mr. Boop / Skelehime (Nicolette Bocalan)
• Mr. Boop / Gil Goletski
• [Untitled] / Rayne Klar
• Mr. Boop / Emma Hunsinger

Mr. Boop Volume IV: "Mr. Mr. Boop" by Alec Robbins

[Clint · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly funny and weird, and such a daring provocation of copyright.

[Matthew Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Listen man, I love Mr. Boop. It’s a joke comic about intellectual property law and cartoon orgies, sure, but it’s also about masculinity, toxicity in relationships, and Sonic the Hedgehog being an assassin after not being considered for a threesome. It’s strange, heartwarming, disturbing but mostly? It’s fucking hilarious. I started reading the webcomic a few months after quitting The Longbox Podcast, I remember it was the first night of the NFL Draft in 2020. Was absolutely hammered off of Pink Whitney (it was the beginning of the pandemic) and I stumbled onto this comic on Twitter. My drunk ass was dying laughing but it sparked my love for comics again, something I hadn’t felt in a long time reviewing comic books weekly. Alec Robbins and Mr Boop got me out of a years long funk in 2020 and rereading the hardcover in 2022, it’s hard to reflect on how important it is to me when I’m still laughing at that panel of Mickey Mouse talking about his dad. A must buy/read for yourself, your friends, your parents, the fictional character you want to marry and secretly have a shrine dedicated to and are manifesting meeting a person that looks just like them. (This is a hypothetical I am not doing this)

[The Bibliopossum]

I'm gonna have to read this again to really get what's going on.

[olivia · Rating 5 out of 5]

embarrassing to know that no one could ever possibly love their partner as much as alec loves his incredibly hot wife, betty boop

[Eva B. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wow, it sure is wild to see someone so fixated on a fictional character that they think they're married and in love! Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go log onto character.ai to chat up a Hank Pym bot to experience dopamine.

All jokes aside, this was a fun skewering of IP and copyright, as well as fan culture. I especially liked the fourth volume and everything with Liz.

[Courtney · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't mind ridiculousness or raunchiness if there's cleverness. I'm amused that there's a wiki page for it.

Also enjoyed reading Free Sex Free Beer Free Speech Mr. Boop and the Problem of Desire https://solrad.co/free-sex-free-beer-...


Additionally, I have been enjoying the Cuphead DLC and had been thinking about Betty Boop due to the art.

[Justin Decloux · Rating 5 out of 5]

Move out of the WATCHMEN.

There's a best comic in town.

[Victor The Reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

Behind its strangely charming cover, there’s a romantically twisted and raunchy love story between man and cartoon woman. Originally published in four volumes, we follow the story of comic writer Alec and his marriage to legendary 1930s cartoon icon Betty Boop which at first glance looks lovey-dovey. Unfortunately, this romance will face some extremely challenging hurdles that include personal issues, other cartoon characters wanting in on the animated action and a ruthless battle of intellectual property law.

It’s a wild, bizarre and outrageous comic story that may be too strange but has its own toony panache. The best part is the crazy humor that will make you chuckle, but can lead into some more darker stuff. It’s also pretty much part fanfic, part adult sitcom, part cartoon crossover and part “Who Framed Roger Rabbit”. Alec’s story can quickly turn rather unhinged and pretty smutty, while it later gets more grounded in the second half.

I found it to be still fairly entertaining and funny at times despite it getting too weird and intense for my taste, but I’m sure some of us have had cartoon crushes ourselves. B- (67%/Decent)

[Kaethe · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know what I think about this yet.

Library copy

[Jason Pollard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh, so I'm about to only think or talk about this for at least the next year, huh? That tracks!

Skyrocketed to the top of my list of favorite comics ever before I was even 1/3 of the way done with it. Of all of the works that began as daily pandemic projects that I've read, this best captures that mid-2020 feeling of abject loneliness backgrounded by corporate consolidation and greed.

Even if this were just a straight-up satire of IP protection laws it would be brilliant, but Robbins deftly evolves it into something warmer, sweeter; Mr. Boop is not solely concerned with giving a middle finger to the companies that own and sell our ideas, but also with how living in a culture obsessed with selling us these ideas warps our minds.

[Maggie Siebert · Rating 4 out of 5]

forgot to log that i'd finished this!! really funny and sweet and strange. all the supplementary material was wonderful to have as well. shout out to the homie remy boydell for the amazing cover

[Zubdub · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is art

[Darnell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finished with this in full. Overall, I think it's basically just an ascended meme: there are some funny parts, and some clever bits, but ultimately it isn't meant to be looked at too closely.

[Kaitlyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whatever you're thinking this is, whatever you think is going to happen next, you WILL be wrong.

Glorious.

[Brooksie Fontaine · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of those things I stumbled on at 4AM while surfing the internet. I read the whole thing in one sitting, wrapped by the absurdity and genius of what I was witnessing.

Even knowing that it was an increasingly elaborate parody of copyright restrictions, manic pixie dreamgirls, and a very specific era self-indulgent webcomics and fanfictions, I strangely found myself getting emotionally invested in the soap opera-esque twists and turns of the plot.

Despite the deliberately simplistic drawing style of most of the comic, and the VERY lewd subject matter, there is nothing crude about this comic. It resonated with me when Mr. Boop/Alec began changing his "real" girlfriend's words and style of speech to be more complementary of him, showing his insecurity and inability to be in a relationship without turning his significant other into a fictionalized version of herself.

After finishing it, desperate for more context of how this came to be, I read an interview with Robbins where he mentioned worrying people would get the wrong idea from the ending; he didn't want to imply that fantasy worlds are bad. As a very fantasy-prone person myself, I don't think that's the message at all. Rather, fantasy only becomes destructive when we make the people around us into two-dimensional characters whose only purpose is to support us, and I think this comic conveys that brilliantly.

[Matt-hue Loose · Rating 5 out of 5]

It makes me happy that I can log this here, AND on Letterboxd...!

I hope that one day a spreadsheet like, more sophisticated platform will come into existence so I can log all multimedia in one place, socially...!

One day...!

[Ostrava · Rating 5 out of 5]

Randomly remembered following this shitpost masterpiece on Twitter. Genius.

[Steven Kolber · Rating 1 out of 5]

Rather silly and bizarre

[Marissa Medley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can honestly say that I’ve never read a book like Mr. Boop before, I’d be surprised if anything with the same premise or execution even exists.

On one hand the comics make me laugh my ass off at how ridiculous it is for Alec Robbins to be lovingly married to fictional sex symbol Betty Boop and have totally incredible sex and orgies with other iconic fictional characters.

On the other hand I’m considering the strange semi parasocial relationships we have with fictional property, how a character can be subjected into literally any kind of situation; romantic, sexual, fetishistic, platonic, parental, submissive, god-like.

We as an audience/consumers have an indescribable yet overt power over characters that don’t exist. Yet at the same time because of copyright laws, we don’t. We can and possibly will be forced to stop by whoever owns said character. Corporations have the same power over fictional property but instead of exploiting them for sexual or romantic gratification, they exploit them for profit. (Depicting a three way between Alec Robbins, Betty Boop and Bugs Bunny isn’t super lucrative to wide consumers buuut it makes for great internet memes)

There’s a few panels that I need to mention that hold a concept that’s also important so spoilers :p

When trying to have sex with Betty Boop for the first time in their marriage, Alec Robbins experiences erectile dysfunction. Of course Betty comforts him and exclaims that it’s ok and normal while he cries into her chest and tells her she should leave him. Betty Boop of course insistently reassures him. Fucking ridiculously funny but thought provoking…

Along with projecting our sexual fantasies onto fictional characters fans also tend to project their greatest insecurities…raw parts of themselves that within this fantasy the one they admire and love most (ex. Betty Boop) will hear them, accept them, love them no matter what because…they can make them love them no matter what. When you’re being vulnerable with a real person the situation can be much more unpredictable, it could hurt. But not with Betty Boop. She Loves you, and she’s not going anywhere.

That is, unless the President of Cartoons has a say in it.

Anyway, READ THIS BOOK! Buy it or borrow it or something because within it’s weird Meta niche meme universe and silly art-style is a well crafted commentary on the human desire for non-human connection ⭐️

The ending was pretty confusing though soo 4 stars

[Sam Quixote · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cartoonist Alec Robbins is married to classic cartoon pinup Betty Boop and they’re madly in love with one another. They also can’t stop having orgies with the likes of Bugs Bunny and Peter Griffin. Then Sonic the Hedgehog gets jealous and tries to assassinate Alec. You know - that hoary old canard!

So yeah, Mr Boop is a bit of a strange comic - it was apparently popular enough to run for four books, all of which are collected in this edition, though I’d never heard of it before - that turns out to be also actually kinda funny but also one-note, repetitive, and inconsistently interesting.

The four-panels-a-page strips aren’t funny in a laugh-out-loud way but I did appreciate how silly it is - characters literally saying the most silly things, or deliberately corny punchlines, very earnestly - and it is imaginative at times. The direction the fourth and final book takes is especially creative.

But the constant sex - none of which is graphic; it’s all off-page/insinuated - and the weak storylines didn’t make for the most compelling of reads. Also, don’t expect the same level of art you see on the cover replicated within the book - Robbins’ interior art is less finessed than Remy Boydell’s painted cover.

The weird, repeated jokes made me think of Tim Robinson’s sketch comedy, and it turns out that Robbins was a writer on I Think You Should Leave, so if you like that kind of humour, you’ll probably enjoy Mr Boop. I thought Mr Boop was fine - a bit too long, not very substantive, but occasionally funny, surprisingly edgy in what he makes famous characters do, and sometimes the narrative contortions are quite clever.

[Timothy Grubbs · Rating 4 out of 5]

What the hell did I just read?

Mr. Boop by Alec Robbins is a collection of comic strips depicting a quasi-autobiography of the author picturing himself married to Betty boop in a world populated by other people but mostly other cartoon characters.

The strips are pretty raunchy (with some of the guest strips bordering on classy pornographic), but the over all theme is that Alex is married to Betty Booo and he loves his wife (also that corporations that own cartoon characters can go to hell).

The anti-corporate stance of the series (and it’s repeated poking thumbs in the eye attitude towards such folks) is amusing, and the collection and concept as a whole is a nice creative way to get around decades old copyright and ownership issues with “satire” or portraying the adaptation as based on a true story (basically forcing a company to PROVE the author isn’t married to Betty boop and having lots of set with her and other cartoon characters).

The art is crude but even the scribbling of known characters is recognizable…with a world you might compare to who framed Roger rabbit, Greg the bunny, or any other world where fictional characters live side by side with real people (or at least fictional versions of an author who wishes he lived in such a world).

[Ultimatebooklover04 · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of my, if not my favorite, comic strips. Where do I even begin?

First off, I love Alec’s and Betty’s relationship. From turning into a classic “Gary x Mary Stu” to actually exploring their unhealthy dynamics (IE: both being manipulative towards each other and Betty Boop representing his failed relationships) is both a slap in the face and a relief.

Even if the fourth book is a completely different ball park, this comic is a great example and dissection of a self insert. How often, it feels like something is deeper going into the scenes, and it’s a reflective on their own personal issues.

Even the shotty art helps with that. The quick sketches brings out how passionate Alec is to Betty Boop. He doesn’t care about the messiness, just how dedicated he is to his imaginary wife.

It shouldn’t be this underground, and is easily a classic for me!

[Estibaliz · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you think you might get offended by a comic strip where the author claims to be married to Betty Boop, and proceeds to have sex not only with her, but also with another popular cartoons like Bugs Bunny, Peter Griffith, and Goku... then definitely skip this one.

If you are up to enjoy some amusing and twisted critic to the whole Intellectual Property concept, with some fun (sassy) cameos on the way, then sure, go ahead.

Overall, this has been way more enjoyable that I was expecting, and it's amazing how it doesn't get repetitive, even though one could say there's only just one main joke going on for it during most of its length. Actually, I'd say the last volume (vol. IV) is the best one in the whole collection.

Plenty of guest comic strips included, to add some extra fresh layer of content and laughs.

[Villain E · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was terrible. The internet lied to me.

I saw the cover and read the synopsis and thought I was going to get something like Three Fingers. But the interior art is amateurish and the story is neither smart nor funny. I should have looked at the writer's bio. He's written for shows like Comedy Bang Bang, which I also don't find funny. If you like self-aware awkward humor like "I love my wife Betty Boop who I am totally married to in real life and who is super hot and I am going to have sex with right now" as a punchline to EVERY four-panel strip in the book, then you might find this funnier than I did.

[Chad · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was interesting. It's really weird. It's a comic strip where the artist has inserted himself as Betty Boop's husband. There are no jokes. Each 4 panel strip just ends without jokes. Betty and Mr. Boop are really into each other and having sex and they bring other cartoon characters like Bugs Bunny and Peter Griffin into their bedroom for orgies. Then later on, it turns to be about IP infringement and the end just kind of peters out. It's a very strange concept.

[r. fay · Rating 5 out of 5]

funniest book i've read in years. i was actively laughing out loud. so poignant and clever and fascinating. mr boop is such an important moment for comics, i cant wait to see its legacy. alec robbins unlocked a new era for fair use discussion and did it in the most enjoyable and exciting way possible. holy shit i hope i get to meet him in september 😭😭

[Kevin Matthews · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredible work that starts of feeling like nothing more than a bizarre ride through the sexual fantasy landscape of someone obsessed with Betty Boop, as well as numerous other cartoon characters, but soon becomes a brilliant exploration of infatuation, sex, IP, copyright, and how we represent ourselves to anyone else with an outside perspective on our own lives.

[Alexander · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ich hab' die ganze Sache in einem Rutsch online durchgelesen. Das ganze beginnt als lustiger kleiner Comic, der gewisse Grenzen auslotet. Im Laufe der vier Bände wird aber eine tolle Meta Story daraus, die ein schönes Beispiel für gelungene Internetkultur darstellt. Chapeau!